Anchor Me
by Noos
Summary: She doesn't want to think about it. Not about the voices, not about the Nogitsune, not about the fact that everyday he's still out there, Stiles becomes a little weaker. Not about how his body won't hold out for much longer.


**So this is officially the first one in a series of drabbles I'm co-doing/posting/writing with Sarah (Livelovelaugh'17) to hopefully help us survive the hiatus. It hurts, and if you want to blame anyone, blame her. We will let you know if we're taking prompts on martinnski (tumblr) or our personal blogs, but really we hope this will become your home for the next few stydia-less weeks. Beta'ed by who else? Sarah  
**

**Based on the following prompt: Lydia has a panic attack and Stiles kisses her to stop it.**

* * *

Sometimes she hates this so much.

It's not like she doesn't love her pack. Because she does. So much that sometimes she doesn't know what to do with herself. So much that sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night out of breath, worried that she might scream the death of one of them at any given moment. So much that she would deliberately put herself in harm's way to protect any of them. So much that she did put herself in harm's way to protect them, only it didn't work. They still went looking for her and when they found her, it almost cost Allison and Stiles their lives.

Sometimes she hates what being in a pack means. Especially when it means sitting in a hospital's waiting room for the third time in a week, wearing the same clothes as the day before, hair messy and face so dirty you can actually see the tear tracks on her cheeks.

Scott is sitting next to her, so close their arms are touching, because this is how they sit now. This is the only form of comfort that can soothe either of them whenever Stiles and Allison are in trouble. This is how they give each other strength when they feel their world collapsing around them.

Still, Lydia can feel him shaking next to her, trying so very hard to act like the alpha he is. And he is the alpha. Today more than ever. He saved them. Both of them. Stiles and Allison. His best friend and the love of his life. Because yes, it might be Kira's hand that he's holding right now, but there is no denying that this boy will always be about Allison. It is nothing against Kira because Kira's awesome and she risked her life to save their friends, people she barely knows, and for that alone Lydia is more than willing to call her a part of the pack. But Scott will never fully let go of Allison. And if the gut-wrenching scream he let out when Allison collapsed on the ground isn't enough of a tell, then his frantic rambling when he rushed over to her should be enough.

_Please Allison, no. You can't leave me. I've got you. Please stay with me._

Allison is okay, the doctors are saying. Or she will be. The wound is quite deep, but the sword hasn't punctured her lung and for some miraculous reason that Lydia won't ever question, nothing vital has been hit.

Lydia can breathe a little, because her best friend will survive this. They always survive. The problem is they don't have any time to actually live.

Not when Stiles is still being partly controlled by the Nogitsune. Not when his body is so weak, he has to steady himself against a wall to keep from falling. Not when Lydia can lose him at any moment.

Her eyes water again on their own accord when she thinks about a life without Stiles. This is what seems to happen anytime she thinks about Stiles now. Ever since he went missing and Lydia felt herself crumble at the seams, the thought of losing him ever present on her mind. She remembers the surge of hope she felt when she thought she finally understood the voices, that she knew where Stiles was. She remembers her heart sinking and her vision blurring with tears when he wasn't at Eichen House. She remembers hiding in the hospital's bathroom and breaking down when they finally found him because he's alive and they could've lost him. She could've lost him.

_What are the voices telling you? Are they saying that Stiles is dying? He is, you know. He's dying._

She doesn't want to think about it. Not about the voices, not about the Nogitsune, not about the fact that everyday he's still out there, Stiles becomes a little weaker. Not about how his body won't hold out for much longer.

She suddenly feels out of breath, her heart hammering in her chest, her vision blurring at the edges. She feels cold, so, so cold and sticky with sweat, her blood pumping in her ears and _god, what is happening to her?_

_Are they saying that Stiles is dying?_

She hears a sob from somewhere around her and she doesn't realize until it's too late that it's her own.

"Lydia?" She hears someone say next to her, probably Scott, but his voice is so distant and the only thing she can do is try to take a breath and try to see through the spots in her vision.

It hurts so much. Her heart hurts.

She gets up and turns to leave but she's shaking so much her knees almost buckle under the pressure. She steadies herself on the wall and manages to take two more steps before the pressure becomes too much and she collapses.

She shuts her eyes tight, bracing herself for the hit, but it never comes.

She feels a pair of strong arms hold her instead before easing her onto the ground, and despite her labored breathing and her frantic sobbing she knows who it is before she opens her eyes. Because she knows his touch and she knows his smell and she knows that he's always there for her, even when his body is at its weakest and he's being controlled by an evil spirit.

"Lydia, look at me," she hears him say, but she's too scared to comply because what if this is just in her head and he's not really here?

She feels a palm cup her cheek, long fingers wiping her tears away, and she leans into it because even when she can't breathe or think straight, she still needs to know that he's here.

She finally opens her eyes and he's there, all soft lips and moles and worried eyes.

Her vision's so blurry she can't see him straight but he's there and his hand's on her face and he's begging her to focus on her breathing, and it's not possible that he's not thinking about locker rooms and dirty floors and stolen kisses, because she's on a hospital floor having a panic attack, and even she's thinking about that.

She tries to do as he says, tries to breathe right, to stop shaking. She looks at him again, the bags under his eyes so purple they almost hurt.

_He is, you know. He's dying._

She feels another sob escape her because she's losing him, but before she can register what's going on, Stiles suddenly fills her vision and she feels herself stop breathing.

The blood's pumping in her ears and she's sticky with sweat but she registers the pair of soft lips on hers, the fingers tangling in her hair and on her cheek, and she finally closes her eyes and lets herself just feel.

Everything is Stiles.

The lips molding against her own, anchoring her to this world. The fingertips ghosting over her cheeks. The soft whisper when he finally pulls away.

_Stay with me, Lydia. Please, just stay with me._

She opens her eyes slowly and she can actually see. She feels her breathing slowing down, the frantic beats of her heart for an entirely different reason.

Stiles doesn't let go of her, instead touching his forehead to hers, his soft breath fanning over her face, and this moment is so real, _he's_ so real that she can't stop herself from letting out another sob.

"Lydia, please-"

"I'm okay," she whispers, interrupting before he can get another word out. "I'm okay, Stiles," she continues, her voice shaky and barely there. "You're here, I'm okay."

She can actually see the moment he registers that all of this is because of him. That her tears and her sadness and her worry and her pain and her love and her happiness and her being is because of him. That everything is because of him.

_If you die, I will literally go out of my freaking mind._

Is this what he meant he would feel like? Because she certainly feels herself bordering on devastation.

But he's not dead. He's right here, his arms holding her together, his eyes soft and searching, trying to piece together the puzzle, trying to understand when it is that he became her anchor to this world.

He probably always was.

Her breathing is finally slow enough for her to think straight, and she realizes that she's on a hospital floor with the boy who loves her more than the world - the boy she loves more than the world - and a dozen people staring.

She doesn't care, and when Stiles tugs on her arm, silently begging her to scoot closer, she does just that, looping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest. She feels his arm hold her to him like she might be gone in a second, his head buried in her neck.

"You held you breath," she hears him whisper.

She feels the weight of his words, the realization accompanying them, the pain because he knows now, he knows he can hurt her just as much as she's always hurt him.

She clutches him tighter, leaving him no room for insecurities and self blaming.

Yes, he can hurt her. Yes, if anything happens to him, she'd go crazy. Yes, she held her breath, and she will always hold her breath when Stiles is kissing her. Just like she did the first time.

No, she won't ever stop feeling this way. No, she won't let the Nogitsune take him away from her. No, she won't ever let go.


End file.
